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Apple CEO Tim Cook donates nearly $5M in company stock to charity

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Apple CEO Tim Cook gifted 23,215 shares of directly owned company stock to an unidentified charity this week, an amount worth nearly $5 million at the end of trading on Tuesday.

Cook's charitable donation was recorded in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing today. As no shares were sold, a reporting price was not applied to the transfer.

Apple stock finished the day at $215.04, meaning Cook's gift, if converted today, would be worth $4,992,154.

While the destination of Cook's donation is unknown — corporate leaders are obliged to disclose movement of owned shares, but are not required to publicly report a charitable transaction's recipient — the executive has made similar gifts in the past. In 2015, Cook transferred 50,000 shares of owned company stock to an unspecified organization.

Including an acquisition of 166 shares on Jan. 31, the last effective day of Apple's 2017 Amended Employee Stock Purchase Plan period, the CEO now 878,425 shares of beneficially owned Apple stock.

This week's contribution is the latest in a string of donations from the Apple chief. In 2014, Cook donated a "substantial sum" to the Human Rights Campaign's Project One America, which focuses on promoting LGBT rights in the U.S. South. That same year, he gave $291,791 to Pennsylvania's Steel Valley School District, funds that were later used to purchase iPads for students and teachers.

In addition to direct donations, Cook has raised funds for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights by auctioning off one-on-one lunches through online service CharityBuzz. One such auction brought in $330,000 in 2014.

Despite amassing vast wealth as Apple's top executive, Cook leads a relatively simple life that stand in contrast with other tech leaders who spend their fortunes on homes, yachts and planes. Indeed, Apple in 2017 mandated Cook use private jets for future travel, citing new security protocols.

Cook in 2015 said he plans to give a bulk of his money away to charity in what he called a "systematic approach" to philanthropy.



15 Comments

sirozha 15 Years · 801 comments

Tim, keep donating your personal wealth to LGBT rights. Good job!

Just please leave Apple out of your social agenda. 

cgWerks 8 Years · 2947 comments

I guess I'll take that age old advice..... if I don't have anything good to say...

anton zuykov 9 Years · 1056 comments

cgWerks said:
I guess I'll take that age old advice..... if I don't have anything good to say...

That would be equal to you NOT POSTING at all, tho.. Your post clearly has nothing good in it.

 So, why quoting a smart advice, and pretending to follow it, when in actuality your post went against it?
What purpose did this serve?

anantksundaram 18 Years · 20391 comments

cgWerks said:
I guess I'll take that age old advice..... if I don't have anything good to say...

What a snarky post. How could one possibly not have something good to say? Hey, it’s his money. As far as I am concerned he is entitled to burn it in the fireplace to heat his home. It’s his money. 

Instead he gives it away. And yet, someone can’t think of something good to say? Sad.

loquitur 8 Years · 139 comments

sirozha said:
Tim, keep donating your personal wealth to LGBT rights. Good job!

Just please leave Apple out of your social agenda. 

Apple, like many corporate entities (public or otherwise), co-sponsors various activities ranging from charitable contributions
to agencies involved in humanitarian disasters (e.g. via donations to the American Red Cross), efforts supporting
a greener planet (Apple being nearly "net zero" here), and also human rights issues such as the LGBT movement.

Just looking at the 2018 sponsor list for SF Gay Pride, this includes Budweiser, Hilton Hotels, T-Mobile, Smirnoff,
Salesforce, the Commonwealth Club, Amazon, AT&T, intel, PG&E, airbnb, Lyft, many health orgs such as
the Kaiser Foundation, Genentech, Gilead, etc., and retail ops ranging from Safeway to Nordstrom.

Now you may be anything from a capital-L libertarian, a religious practitioner, a Leninist, or amongst those believing that any
corporatist involvement in "social agendas" constitutes anathema.   Meanwhile, Apple and the LGBT
rights movement marches on.